Luciana's Dec 7 performance at Overture Center

Next week is finals week, so I'm drowning in final projects at the moment, but once I get through the grading I will start blogging again (by next week, I hope)!

RIP Walter Bond, Jr.

We lost one of our family's bright lights this weekend, and I'm going to feature him in today's animal post.  Walter died from the cancer that he has bravely fought for the last few weeks (probably months, but they are good at hiding symptoms from us).  He was preceded in death by his sweet brother Womble (who we also miss tremendously), who died a couple of months ago after losing the battle with his chronic respiratory condition.  


We adopted Walter and his two brothers, Womble, and Quince, a couple of years ago, and they were six months old when they came to live with us. They were our first rats.

Walter was always the biggest and most outgoing of the group. He led and they followed. He loved people, exploring, and most of all, food.  He has always been the social butterfly of the group and got along with the other seven rats (though we're now down to a total of six) in our household.  Immediately upon opening L's bedroom door, he would make a beeline over to greet his visitor(s).

His other favorite activity was napping with his brothers. Despite having several houses, hammocks, pods, hideys, etc., the three boys most often piled into one little hut/hammock together instead of using their own. 

He was pretty fearless, much like Flower, our tiniest female rat, and loved to ride around the house on shoulders. He liked to play with and groom the cats (Tica and Ivan were favorites) and did a pretty good job and grooming L & I as well.

He was such happy, charming little guy, that it was impossible not to smile when spending time with him. It was also nearly impossible to deny him my food when he asked for it (or stole it), much to L's chagrin. He was incredibly strong, and I quickly learned that if he actually got a hold of a piece of my food, I could not get it back from him. It shocked me to lose a tug-of-war battle with a little rat the first time it happened, but I continued to lose almost every time.  He REALLY loved his food.  He loved sharing my fruit/veggie/protein post-workout smoothies, and enjoyed those up to the end when he could eat little else.  He would grab the spoon and hold on with his tiny little hands and lick as fast as he could, and if I didn't get the next spoon loaded in time, he would try to reach right into the glass.

This may be a bit too soon for me to write as thoroughly as I would like. I'm struggling with emotions and trying to keep it together while writing, because I spent the majority of the weekend ugly crying and swollen eyed, and I'd like to not invite another cry migraine.  He had a little dark spot of fur on his otherwise-

white right hip, and L & I always liked his cute little spot. Somehow it was seeing that spot, when I turned him over to wrap him up and prepare him for burial, that killed the thin layer of composure I had maintained.  I miss that little spot so much.

Saffron

Since I live with so many cool beings, I thought I would highlight one of them from time to time.  My goal is to do so once a week, but since I'm still really struggling with time management/keeping up with my responsibilities, I can't make any promises.

I wanted to start with Saffron, because she's lived with us longer than any of the others.  We're not sure how hold she is.  She was an adult of unknown age when she came to live with us. A former colleague had a sister who no longer wanted to keep Saffron, so she came to live with us almost 16 years ago.  She's an Indian Ringneck dove.


She has a very sweet disposition, and a call that sounds like she's laughing.  You can't help but to smile when you hear her "laugh".  She enjoys spending time with her other dove friends, Cypress (mourning dove) and Valentino (white dove).  She gets along with all of the birds, guinea pigs, and rabbits, who she shares the room with.

She's a very messy eater (as are the other doves), and uses her head and feet to throw seeds out of the dish.  A good portion of her food ends up on the ground or the bottom of whichever cage she eats in.  She likes her nightly fruit/veggies, but will toss those around also. If you notice the walls in any of the pictures taken in their room, you can always see little dots/splatters, which occur when they pick up a juicy morsel and shake it, causing juice/small bits to fly off and stick to the walls. These pieces tend to stick like glue, so I periodically steam clean the walls (which of course only stay clean for about 20 minutes or so).

She's definitely slowing down, and I can see the signs of aging. She no longer holds her wings sleekly and firmly at her side--they sag a bit and are a bit rough at the feather tips. She doesn't fly as much as she used to, though she does still fly.  She has never been ill or had to see a vet, and she's still quite healthy at her advanced age. She spends more of her time on lower surfaces than she used to, which is understandable, and her new favorite spots are both within a couple of inches of a feeding station, which allows her to starting throwing food around and making a mess the minute I put the full dishes down.


She has also always been very intrigued by the green light on my camera. Some of the animals notice it and some do not, but she always notices it and watches it. 

She is such a sweet bird and so integral to our family that I get a little panicky sometimes when I think about her age. Their average lifespan is 15-20 years, and my fingers are crossed that she will make 30.

Bounty

Alexa (Lexi)

I've survived the first two weeks of the semester (almost--one day of classes left this week), and so far things are going very well (other than being back to my not sleeping patterns).  The first week of classes is exciting--meeting the new students, starting a fresh new semester--but not particularly fun.  I have to spend way too much time going over syllabi and other boring administrative-type tasks and way too little time coding.  The second week we start coding a bit, but by next week, we'll jump in with both feet and spend the rest of the semester in that mode.  That's when it really gets fun.  

I have women in my programming classes!  Yes, that's womEn, not womAn, because I have more than one woman in each of my three programming classes, and my classes are a bit more diverse than usual.  I'm quite excited about the diversity, as I think it makes for a better class.

Mimosa (Mimi)

The animals and I are still suffering from my back-to-school withdrawal.  We have gotten used to being together all the time, all summer, and this summer I was even more of a homebody than usual.  I struggle with being gone from them for so long.  I will adjust to it, but right now I'm still feeling sad and guilty when I leave them every day.  

Last week I pushed myself far, far out of my comfort zone and participated in a Flashmob, performed by faculty for the students.  We learned the dance on Tuesday during our staff orientation day, and then practiced at home with the video until our performance last Wednesday.  We invaded the commons, which was packed because of the free food SGA provided, as zombies and danced to Thriller. I'm not a fan of zombies or Thriller, but I do love to dance and we had a ton of fun practicing and stressing out over getting the steps right. I almost backed out about 20 times, but I knew my colleagues would curse me forever for such cowardice, so I forced myself to stick with it. We pulled it off, and though it was great fun, I'm fairly sure it was NOT pretty.  I had visions of my students breaking out in uncontrollable giggles for the remainder of the semester, after seeing me make a giant ass of myself (a la Elaine's employees after seeing her very special dancing on Seinfield--a classic!), but no giggles so far--at least not to my face. :)  The video has been posted on Facebook.  Ugh.

In addition to the crunch of prepping for and returning to school and learning a dance, I have been trying to keep up with the garden, which is incredibly bountiful right now. I'm trying to stay ahead of harvesting and either using or freezing the produce.  We've been eating very well, and enjoying a bumper crop of eggplant.  Fortunately, we all love eggplant, and it is so versatile that nobody minds having it 2-3 times a week, because each dish is completely different (eggplant "bacon" is great in wraps, miso-glazed eggplant, eggplant lasagna, eggplant & chickpea curry, black-eyed pea & eggplant curry, eggplant curry burgers, roasted eggplant & other garden veggies in a peanut-lime-sriracha sauce, etc.).  I'm going to really miss eating most of our meals directly from the garden, when the season ends!  

We grew an experimental batch of Timothy grass this year, and since it went very well, we'll be growing much more next year. The rabbits and guinea pigs go through so much organic Timothy hay that we'd like to grow some of our own. They enjoy eating the grass, too.  I've been hanging small bunches of grass in the house in an effort to determine the best means of making hay (haha).

We don't eat much pasta anymore (wheat!), but I made this Mac & Cheese recipe, which allowed me to use a bunch of cherry tomatoes from the garden.  It was delicious--out of this world! M rated it one of his top three favorites, so I'll definitely make it again. We have tons of cherry tomatoes this year, so this will be my go-to dish for using them up.

I managed to make the best salsa I've ever eaten but I didn't use a recipe and will probably never be able to recreate it exactly. I went out to the garden with a basket, picked everything that was ripe and could be used for salsa, roasted about half of the veggies and left the other half raw, and threw it together in the food processor. I only have 1.5 jars (of 3) left and will then spend the rest of my life chasing the dragon to make that magic again. Why oh why do I not write down my experiments?!? This is not the first time I've done something like this, and I'm annoyed that I've done it again.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

I can't believe school starts in less than two weeks (twelve days)!  I am starting to get the pre-semester influx of emails from students--questions about classes, books, pre-reqs., waiving pre-reqs., etc., and am looking forward to seeing old faces and meeting the new students. It's a very exciting, yet stressful time period!  Fortunately, despite several technical issues with campus servers, I am almost ready.  I have my classes all prepped and loaded onto the D2L site and just have a few administrative tasks (UGH!) to take care of before then.  I should be stress free, but I'm having a strangely "off" day for no apparent reason.  My anxiety level is absolutely through the roof for no reason that I can identify.  It's quite strange and illogical.

Welcome to the Asylum: 

Since I'm somewhat insane today, this is a good segue to give a review of my favorite workout ever:  Insanity Asylum.  I have done each of the workouts at three to four times each, depending on the workout (though I've done Relief, which is stretching, probably six times).  First and foremost, it's a really good workout program. It's challenging and very effective--I've already seen significant changes.  Second, but equally important to me, I LOVE Shaun T, and enjoy all of his workouts.  I think he's a great coach. He's motivating, entertaining, and infinitely watchable.

He's much more hard core and badass on the Asylum workouts than any of his others, and I really enjoy that side of him as well.  Each week I do one "play" workout--usually one of my Bhangra dancing videos or one of Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs workouts (which are very fun, but still a good workout), and it's really funny to see the contrast between Shaun T's silly, flamboyant side in HHA, versus the drill sargeant approach in Asylum.  

There are no real breaks in Asylum. The "warm up" is as intense as the workout itself, so there is no easing into it. Without fail, I am dripping sweat within the first five minutes.  There are a handful of water breaks that are incredibly short, and he is completely unapologetic about driving us so hard. I like that. He repeatedly states that at this level, we shouldn't need any more than two breaths worth of a break, and that motivates me to push myself (though I definitely need to take more than two breaths of break time sometimes, I anticipate the day when I don't need to).   Even though the workouts are incredibly intense, the time flies, because they are not boring. They are physically challenging and mentally challenging--he has some very elaborate combination moves that really force me to focus, and because we're constantly busy, the 40-45 minutes seems to fly by.

Hands down, vertical plyo is the killer.  It is absolutely brutal, but effective.  That was last night's workout.  Normally during the workouts, when Shaun T says, "This next move is the beast!", I get a little surge of excited adrenaline.  When he says that during V.P., I cringe a bit, because I know it's going to be so much worse than the beast.  I am most excited to completely master that workout and get to the point where I laugh when he says that.  

I have seen a huge difference already in my performance.  After just three times through these workouts, I noticed that when I did my old (still intense) plyo workout, that I could jump higher, longer, faster, farther and am quite impressed by the rapid results.

I have been doing the Asylum workouts every other week, rather than every week, because I'm trying to listen to and care for my (aging) body.  I initially wanted to do Asylum workouts for 4-6 weeks straight, and then assimilate them into my other workouts, but they do take a toll.  I am in good shape, but I'm also in my mid forties, post menopausal, and have arthritis in my hands and feet, and all of the running/jumping leave my feet and knees pretty worn out by the end of the week.  Doing one week of Asylum and one week of my other workouts (HIIT and strength training) seems to work well for me.

L has been doing them with me, and she's not nearly as enthusiastic as working out as I am.  She's reluctantly been working out with me almost every day for the last month. She used to have a choice between working out with me or walking the dogs with Mark, and she usually chose walking the dogs (at a pace that is not really a good workout).  She's become very unsatisfied with her body lately and would like to carry less fat than she is carrying. I don't want her to focus on weight at all, but she does need to build more muscle to be healthy and fit, so M & I decided that to be responsible parents, we would have to help her with this. Now she's my workout buddy nearly every night.  We want her to be healthy and fit, but not appearance focused or weight obsessed, so I feel like we're walking on a tight rope with this.  Saying or doing one thing wrong at this sensitive, hormonal age can do lasting damage to her body image/self-esteem, so it's a little bit scary to navigate.

Initially, she was very whiny about it and would literally just go through the motions, which gets no results at all.  Lately, she's had a turn around in attitude that has been wonderful. She's really trying to do the workouts, rather than trying to do as little as possible, and is anxious to see results. She's been starting to challenge herself with the workouts, trying to do more reps or have better form each time.  Asylum was a HUGE challenge for her, but she is really stepping up, and I'm so proud of her.  It's awesome to see her try a workout that she swore she was incapable of doing, and see her push herself farther each time. The self-esteem that builds (not to mention the fitness) is immeasurable!

On a side note, I was SUPER disappointed to find that the Tough Mudder has a minimum age of 18. I really wanted her to do it with me next year, as think it would be fun, give her a tangible goal to train for, and again, help build self-esteem and a better mind-body relationship.  Sadly, we will have to wait a few years to do it together.  I will be doing it next year and am really excited about it. That gives me a while to try to talk Dej & Mark into it.  She doesn't like the mud involved, and Mark isn't sure about the physical endurance part, but he has plenty of time to train. So far, we have a team of four (vegans!) committed for next year, but I'd really like them to join us.  With the average age of 29 and only 24% females, I will probably be the oldest woman there. I've been a female computer scientist for over 20 years, so I refuse to be intimidated by the numbers!

Back to Asylum:  My favorite part may seem a bit odd, but it's very important to me, particularly since I am doing these workouts with L.  The other participants in the video--the people doing the workout with him--are all athletes.  There is not a fake boob to be seen.  

I find nothing more disgusting than doing a workout only to look up and see a bunch of bolt-on Barbies.  A true athlete does not have fake, giant boobs, because they get in the way (besides looking ridiculous on a lean, muscular body) and are not natural. Women who spend money on this rather than helping the less fortunate with that money are appearance obsessed, not fitness based.  I'm fairly disgusted by the women in the Hip Hop Abs video, as a couple of them have ridiculous, fake breasts. I probably wouldn't have noticed it, but L pointed it out to me, and it became more and more of an irritant. These women belong in porn, not fitness.  This is not a message I want sent to my impressionable teen daughter!  The women in Asylum are fit, strong, and natural (or at least look very natural), and their real bodies motivate me greatly. These women are appropriate role models for my child, not the balloon bimbos prancing around trying to be sexy.  I have NO tolerance for fake boobs (with the exemption of mastectomy reconstruction, of course) and find them a gross symbol of what's wrong with the world today (breast-obsessed culture, women as objects, shallow, appearance based and lacking in substance, money spent on fun bags when people/animals are starving and dying from lack of medical care--really?? These are valid priorities for people?!) and they absolutely induce rage in me.  I will not knowingly associate or spend time with such trite, useless, anti-feminist females and surely don't want to work out with them!

** The pictures are L's latest watercolor paintings (on 11x15 watercolor paper) and Daisy, because she was standing next to me looking goofy (but very cute). 

There's always time for planks.

A surprise update to the last post (UW-Whitewater's Plan-It Purple vent):  I received a very unexpected phone call from UWW's catering services department yesterday.  The director was very apologetic that the grilled veggies were never added to the salad as intended.  He was very professional and seemed sincere, and I hope he didn't get in trouble!

I was really taken off guard by the call, because I hadn't yet sent (or even) finished the letter I was working on, and we did not fill out any surveys. I fully intended to communicate my disappointment to them but was having a hard time phrasing it the way I wanted to without coming across as "my 'feewings' were hurt and my special snowflake child was sad."  I forget about convenient tools like Google Alerts, which is how I assume they discovered my disappointment about the day. I appreciate that the individuals involved with the event cared enough to set up alerts to check for feedback and that they cared enough to call and apologize. I still believe it's a poorly conceived event that should be strictly optional, but I respect their professional integrity in trying to do the best job they can.

I feel somewhat better about it and am hoping that Dej will be able to open her mind up a bit and will fall in love with UWW, so she can fully enjoy her time there.  I will take her back before classes start to give her a tour, help her find all of her classes, figure out the parking, get her textbooks, etc., so we will have one more shot at a magical day together on campus.

 L finished her week at dance camp, and I'm absolutely heartbroken that I didn't get a video of her performance. They learned a very cool new dance, and my camera battery died about five seconds into it, and my uncooperative arthritic fingers just didn't move fast enough to change batteries and catch the performance. I can't believe I did that.

I did get some nice video of her singing the carnatic songs that they learned and performed, but I'm pretty sure she would kill me for posting that. I also have a cute picture of her sleeping in the back of the car on the way home from camp, but was already told that had to be removed. She is quite stingy about what I am allowed to post or say about her these days.  The joy of teens!

As you can see in the picture below, I was exhausted and looked/felt like hell that day. We went to our friends' annual garden party after her dance camp performance, and I'm horrified that I appeared at a party like that! A makeup touch up would have gone a long way.

I've been spending most of my time prepping for my fall classes, which are starting all too soon.  It's always good to get back to the students and the teaching, but I do not look forward to the return of grading!  A major part of my prep time is spent loading all of my course materials and setting up all of the necessary folders and due dates on D2L (Desire to Learn), which I use for all of my classes. It's very convenient to have everything online and available to the students, and since I run paperless classes, it supports that very well.  All of the students' homework is submitted through D2L and grades are returned that way.  It drives me CRAZY that we are still using so much paper in college classes when the technology available makes it very easy to be environmentally friendly and cut costs by eliminating paper and toner/printing expenses!

I've decided after several frustrating years of using D2L, which is much slower and clunkier than it should be, that I want to get a job there during my summer months.  It's a good example of software that is a great idea and is almost right, but it's not designed in a way that makes it efficient or friendly to use when loading course data.  This is really quite common with large IT projects where analysts and developers design the software based on lots of meetings with users, and logically it seems like it meets the needs. However, the reality of the situation is that there are countless little things--things that would be very simple to change from a coding perspective--that take much longer than they should, and they really slow down the process.  I find myself getting so frustrated every semester, with every class that I load, because I count all of the extra clicks and steps that I have to go through and resent the clunkiness of the process. It's a really good mental reminder for me as a developer, that what really matters in software design is that makes the user's job easier and more efficient, and determining exactly what that takes is incredibly challenging, may change on a dime and with each user, and requires frequent revisiting and refining. Often, it's the littlest things that make the most difference to users in the end and determines whether the users see the software as a valuable tool or a necessary evil.

It's very hard to be user of software when I don't have the ability to go in and change the code to work the way I want it to work. In many cases, I've written my own applications rather than use/purchase perfectly functional software, because I really like the ability to change and redesign as needed.  I want source code for everything!  I may be a control freak.

UW-Whitewater--Scam-It Purple

I had been plugging away on a different post, but my need to vent supersedes my desire to finish what I started.

Yesterday was supposed to be a special day for me. I was not looking forward to the 8-hour day that was scheduled, but saw it as a necessary, though unpleasant, day that would be special for Dej & I.  UW-W requires all students (even transfers who have the whole "college thing" down already) to attend a day long event called "Plan-It Purple" before they can sign up for any classes. When we registered her online, they had the "guest/parent" option (for an additional fee, of course), and she really wanted me to go, so I sucked it up and signed up. Though we weren't very happy with having to go (and pay $68 more to them, because they aren't quite getting enough of our money) and waste a whole day, I thought we would have some fun in the process. I've looked forward to her becoming a Warhawk since I had her. I have had love and loyalty to my alma matter since I was an undergrad there (and I returned for my Master's). Dej attended the on-campus daycare as a toddler.  I was thrilled when she indicated that she would transfer there upon completing her Associate's.  I envisioned a day of mother-daughter bonding, walking around what still feels like "home" to me, sharing that with her.

She has not had a good experience with UWW prior to this. Her acceptance was slowed way up because they didn't notice that they had her transcripts in her file already and were still waiting for them. After several phone calls, they tracked it down and that was cleared up. She has had a few other minor administrative SNAFUs with them, which left her feeling very unfriendly toward them, but I wasn't too worried about that.  Yesterday was enough to change my attitude and wipe out 25 years of affection for that school.

The event was scheduled from 8-4, which definitely does not mesh well with our schedules.  We got up and on the road, and she was feeling very sour about the whole day. I was working very hard to be positive and upbeat, while secretly resenting everything about having to give up a day of productivity for eight hours of wasted time.  The first two sessions were incredibly pointless PowerPoint presentations of UWW marketing, which really puzzled me. These students have already made their decision and will be attending in the fall. Why the hell was our time wasted on peddling their generic marketing materials?!

At 10:45, and for the remainder of the day, the "guest/parent" and the student were split up for the remainder of the day. It's important to note that the website did not remotely indicate anything like this would happen. If it did, why would someone pay extra for a guest to attend with them! I also have to note that all of the online materials used the term "guest/parent", which in retrospect is puzzling, because given the constraints of the day, a parent may tolerate that crap, but a friend would not.  I hope there are no unwitting students who sign up with a spouse or friend, thinking they will be together. That really made both of us angry. She wanted me to go, because she didn't want to be alone for the day. I was attending as a friend, because she's an independent adult, not an 18-year old freshman who is still cared for by their parents.

The sessions available for the "guest/parent" were all applicable only to parents who have dependent children, and many of them only relevant if the student is living on campus. Since Dej is an adult homeowner, none of those sessions applied or offered anything of value at all.  The worthless sessions for "guest/parent" were scheduled only until 1:45.  Her day didn't end until 4:20. There was nothing for the "guest/parent" to do during that time.  My entire day was wasted, and I paid UWW to waste it.

The sessions that she attended were also pointless and did nothing but turn her off to the school as a whole. They broke into mini groups and played insipid games. She was disgusted, as most adults who have better things to do with their time would be.  The ONLY part of her day that provided any value whatsoever was the half-hour meeting she had with her advisor, who helped her pick her classes. This was not her "real" advisor--just a temporary one until the semester starts and the advisors are assigned.  (She came up with the exact same classes that she and I selected after looking over the materials a couple of months ago. When we logged in to register for those classes, we discovered that we couldn't do so until she attended Plan-It Purple.) Obviously, she didn't really need the session with the advisor, but it was nice confirmation that we were on the right track.

We could have saved several hours and lots of money by just scheduling a half-hour appointment with an advisor and then registering for the classes online. That's how I did it when I was a student there, and it worked just fine for all of us, but UWW wouldn't be able to collect copious amounts of money for nothing under that plan.

Then there was lunch. We were allowed to get back together and eat lunch together (how noble of them), and they told us that they had vegan options for us (they offered accommodations for vegetarian or gluten free upon registration; but since there was no vegan option, we specified in the comments), so I was feeling pretty good about that.  When they described the vegan lunch, they said the chef made some roasted veggies and they would be served on field greens.  What they brought us was a small salad--field greens, carrots, tomatoes, onions (which I could smell through the sealed container--GROSS!), and mushrooms, with a packet of high-fructose corn syrup (also called Kraft dressing).  The entire meal, with dressing was about 110 calories. This is not fuel for two adult, fit, active women. This is not tasty or appropriate. This is not a progressive campus, and is clearly not vegan friendly. Those photo was taken with the FULL, untouched container. Notice how little food is actually in there--you can see the bottom in many spots.

Since we had extra time at lunch (we didn't have enough food to eat for very long), we walked to the bookstore, where I was excited to get her some UWW gear. When she was a toddler/child, I dressed her in UWW clothes and was so looking forward to getting her first gear now that she's a Warhawk. She refused. She hates that school so much, she said she will never wear anything with their logo. I was really bummed. It's obviously too late to switch schools now, but I really wish we could. She should love and be proud of her school, and they have deprived her of that.

In one day, UWW showed us that:  1) They have no respect for the time or money of students or their guests/parents.  2) They will do absolutely anything to generate revenue, even wasting the time of thousands of people with pointless, unnecessary, and worthless events.  3) They are not progressive/intelligent enough to recognize that there are vegans in the world, and there's a pretty good chance that their student body and faculty includes them; they will happily take their money but care nothing about their health/well-being.

We received your message UWW, and that's why my younger child will not be spending our money at UWW and also why you can remove me from your alumni lists, because after yesterday, Fuck you! There are many colleges who do respect the time and money of their students, who are also progressive and vegan friendly. That's where we will spend our money.

I do hope while Dej finishes up her degree there, she can find some joy and learn to love her school. College is truly the best time of one's life, and I want her to fully experience that.  I am mourning my lost love. This has been surprisingly hurtful and disappointing to me. I was so angry last night that even my favorite Insanity Asylum workout (Strength!) didn't calm me down. Maybe tonight's workout will do the trick.

Expires on 11/3/20??

Jasper - It's exhausting to be so cute!

I know the day on which my life will end, barring unexpected circumstances (of course I could die in a car accident tomorrow or be struck by lightning today). I know this is very non-traditional, but I think it's a very logical approach to life/death and allows me to live a better, more focused life.

We've had several friends die or lose family members lately, and all of them were very unexpected. Those who died left so many things unfinished, unsaid, undone. I want to avoid that if possible. I don't want my husband to be left grieving, with all of the financial affairs to deal with, the animals and finding care arrangements for them, etc. This got me thinking about a planned exit date. That allows me time to get everything wrapped up into a neat little package, leaving my loved ones with only grief to deal with.
I've put a lot of thought into this and examined it from every angle, and the only "flaw" I can find is of course that there are no guarantees in life, and even the best laid plans can be disrupted by fate.  I prefer to control the means by which I die (quick and relatively painless) and the time, so I am doing my best to bypass fate on this one.
I have a definite end point, which allows me to plan my life efficiently. I've defined my important goals and things that need to be accomplished, and as I know how much time I have left, I can schedule things appropriately. I will be able to ensure my animals' care plans and have the financial affairs wrapped up in a neat, easy package for my family to take over with no stress.  I will also be able to appreciate and enjoy the life I have left more fully.  Knowing, for example, that you have five "July 4th" celebrations left, makes them more special, and also clarifies priorities (e.g.  "Since I only have five left, I want to spend them in this particular way.")

This has been one of the best decisions I have made. It has brought me a sense of control and clarity about life that I haven't had, and I feel incredibly free to live life on my own terms.  I want to clarify that I am not depressed. This decision has nothing to do with being sad or desperate. It's simply the most logical way to deal with the inevitable.

I have selected my birthday (not this year) as the exit day, because that allows my survivors to have one sad day to think about me instead of two. I've noticed when mourning lost loved ones, people struggle with the person's birthday, death day, and holidays. I can't really help with the holidays, but if the birth and death day are the same, that removes at least one ugly day.  I will let my close friends and family know the year but not until there is one year left. That allows everyone enough time to say what they need to say, so they don't have to suffer "If I only I had told her..."

On a funny side note, when I discussed this with L, she was very calm and matter of fact about it (as I knew she would be--she's a very logical girl) and just reminded me that I needed to finish her homeschooling first, because she didn't want to have to go to high school.  LOL--that's my girl!

I offer this as an alternate way of looking at and dealing with the end that we all face, in hopes that others may find it as comforting and freeing as I have. If I have missed something or there is a logical flaw in my reasoning, I would like to hear that. I have no interest in hearing or participating in any emotion-based discourse, so feel free to keep that to yourself. 

Meet Oreo!

We just adopted a four-year old male guinea pig, Oreo, on Wednesday.  I have a young vegan activist friend (college student who helps care for my animals if we are gone) whose teen sister's friend needed to find an immediate home for Oreo. Her loser dad decided he didn't want the guinea pig in his house any more, and she had to get Oreo out immediately, as if he were a piece of trash or ugly furniture. He spent all day Wednesday in his hidey (igloo), poor little guy. I kept giving him fresh greens from our garden. He loved them and would eat them and sniff my hands. By Thursday, he was out of his hidey, moving things around in his environment and being quite friendly with me. He's already learned to look for goodies when he sees me. He will have to interact with the two girl piggies through a divider. He's not neutered (the girls can't be spayed--too dangerous), and at four, he's too old to safely go through surgery. We don't want 6-8 babies, so they will have to visit through the bars.

This afternoon, L had the Flower and Trixie out with Tica.  Tica is extremely non-predatorial and really enjoys interacting with the rats and guinea pigs, so we allow the more outgoing little ones to have supervised time with her. Tica is only five pounds (she's 7 yrs old) and handicapped, so we think she enjoys the little ones, because they are completely non-threatening to her. Trixie and Flower like to climb on her, groom her, sniff her butt (and that's when Tica leaves the party), and generally amuse themselves on her.  Tica likes to try to catch their tails with her front paw. Even though she has claws, she doesn't use them when playing with them. She's very gentle.

Family fun week

My bastardy back continues to infuriate me by not cooperating with my wishes.  I have had two chiropractic adjustments and spent countless hours researching and then stretching and working with my ball to try to release the offending muscles.  I have had slight improvement, but walking is absolute torture.  Within about 20 steps the entire lower back starts into a series of spasms that don't let up until long after I've stopped walking.  I'm able to get through my workouts, carefully, at about 80% of my normal intensity. It's frustrating, but a "wussy" workout is better than none at all.  I tried to push through a dog walk with Mark last night, though, thinking if I just stuck with it the spasms would stop eventually, but they didn't. By the time we got home, the muscles had locked up so badly and so high that I was having a very hard time breathing.  This whole situation is making me beyond angry--it has interfered with my productivity as well as with my workouts and other fun family activities.

Wednesday we went to the Art Institute of Chicago--just the four of us, as Russ couldn't get off work on such short notice. We had a wonderful day, starting with a walk through Millennium Park and a picnic lunch in the park, then on to the Art Institute. They had an exhibit on impressionism and fashion, which was really enjoyable. Walking presented major problems for me, so I had to waddle around like an 80-year old, taking frequent breaks, so the spasms stopped long enough for me to catch a deep breath. It really cast an unpleasant shadow on an otherwise perfect day.  We stopped at Chicago Diner for dinner and had a fantastic meal.  The high point for me (as usual) was the desserts.  I had a mint-chocolate 'milkshake', and wished I could have eaten more than just a delectable bite of Dej's caramel crunch torte. 

Friday the three of us went canoeing on the Bark River.  My back also ruined that day, mostly because we couldn't take Dej, because the canoes seat three, and we would have needed two canoes for four of us. We couldn't count on my rowing ability, so we had to stick with one canoe.  I'll be going in a couple of weeks with Dej and another friend, so she will get a chance to enjoy it too. We had perfect weather, and it was a beautiful day.  I was able to row for the second half of our trip, and as it turned out rowing wasn't nearly as painful or detrimental as walking!

We went out through Two Rivers again, and they dropped us and the canoe at the starting point of the 12-mile trip, in a wildlife sanctuary. We saw hundreds of herons and egrets as well a many other birds, including a bald eagle which was probably the closest I've been to one.  I love canoeing in this location, because for about 80% of it, we are out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by wildlife, and no other humans or signs of them.  It's very relaxing and recharging.  We stopped and had a picnic lunch at about the halfway point.  By the time we made it back to the dock where our journey ended, M & I were both ready to be done rowing!

She LOVES her kale chips!

We were very ready for a nap, but we had dinner plans with friends.  We went to Pig Minds and were really excited for our friends to try it for the first time.  It was a very disappointing night.  The company was fantastic and we very much enjoyed catching up with our old friends, but it was our first negative experience at Pig Minds.  I've been a little depressed about it since.  I know it's odd to be so bummed, but I really love that place, and it's VEGAN, and we've always had such great experiences there, and now I'm worried that they are slipping.  Fingers crossed that it was just a bad server on a bad night. :(

The food, in general, was just meh, which has never been the case there before.  I often get the reuben and love it, so I ordered that.  It was just not good.  It was bland and completely unenjoyable, and I realized after I ate the first half that there was no (vegan) Thousand Island dressing on it. That's the whole point of a reuben--at least for me.  I love my Thousand Island, and a reuben is just pointless without it.  Nobody at the table was blown away by the deliciousness, and that's very atypical for PM.

The rest of the negative experience--the part that was most upsetting to me--was due to a bad server experience. Service in general was slow, but it was busy, so I was willing to ignore that.  HOWEVER, my friend L, who is vegan-ish (long story, but that ambiguous descriptor will have to do for now) asked what the server recommended. She learned while traveling in Europe, that that's the best approach in a new restaurant and often results in great food and even better service.  Somehow, our ignorant server interpreted, "What would you recommend?" as, "We hate vegan food, so what would be the most meat-like food you have?"  She launched into a disgusting pitch that started with, "Well I'm a meat eater myself, so my favorite is blahblahblah, because it's just like real chicken.  She then continued through her disgusting menu tour listing the items that could most "pass" as animal flesh.  I go to vegan restaurants whenever possible partly for the amazing food choices, but also to avoid ignorant, anti-veg garbage like that. I find an approach like that highly despicable and insulting, and especially at a vegan restaurant.  I felt very violated.  I know it sounds dramatic, but I AM sensitive about things like that. When I go to non-veg places, I am expecting such things and am prepared with my defenses up and ready.  I was not remotely prepared for such an assault at one of my "safe" places.